Rasmussen, Gallop, Nielsen.

If those names are not familiar, they’re among the top political polling organizations in the United States and Google is wanting to add itself to the list.

According to politics site The Hill, the Alphabet, Inc.-owned search giant is pitching a service called “Google Consumer Surveys” to staffers and operatives who work for presidential and congressional campaigns, as well as the journalists who cover them.

The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal are said to have used the service, while Google has signed a partnership with the Independent Journal Review for ongoing polling services.

Google collects the polling data for the service through pop-up survey boxes before a news article is read, and through a polling application that is available in the Google Play Store that rewards users credit to put towards buying apps when they participate in polls.

The data itself, while only representative of people on the internet, is said to be a fair sample nonetheless, as Google selects its sample by calculating the age, location, and demographics of those participating in each poll by using their browsing and search history; that may sound a little far-fetched but it’s also the same technology used by Google’s ad services including DoubleClick and AdWords.

“Google Consumer Surveys selects potential responses for each survey using inferred demographic characteristics to get as close as possible to the census for the internet population,” Google Consumer Surveys Product Marketing Manager Justin Cohen told The Hill. “This ensures a representative and statistically significant sample.”

The cost of running a poll using the service is said to be “in the thousands of dollars,” and campaigns that want to use more advanced targeting options are able to sign longer-term contracts with the company.

Well received

The service itself has said to have been used by an unnamed Presidential Candidate, and others that have used the service are high in the praise of it, indicating that even if the whole idea of Google taking on political polling may be a little out there, the service has been well received.

Given Google’s amazing ability to gather and analyze data in every aspect of its business, the fact that they could apply those skills to political polling is really a no-brainer.

While it’s unlikely we’ll see Google replace historic names such as Gallop and Nielsen across various forms of media anytime shortly, if Google plays its cards right the business may end up being a nice little money earner for them, even excluding the brand name recognition the service itself also provides.

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